Book Review

By Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat

Everyday Sacred
A Woman's Journey Home
Sue Bender
HarperSanFrancisco 10/96 Paperback $13.00
ISBN: 0-06-251290-0

Everyday Sacred is an exquisite followup to Sue Bender's bestseller Plain and Simple. This time she sets out to discover the sacred in her everyday life in the Bay Area. Once she stifles her inner critic and stops trying to control things or be perfect, the author is open to tiny epiphanies and little miracles via friends, stories, and experiences.

The care a fellow at a cafe takes in making faces in cappuccino foam, the patience of an artist who draws the same pot over a hundred times, the devotion her son evidences while washing his truck, the way a couple grow closer after the devastation of the fires in the Oakland-Berkeley hills — all these are lessons for Bender. On her journey inward, she learns to linger with objects, to honor any act of kindness, and to savor the "just enough" dimensions of daily life.

It is much more important to cherish the extreme value of small things than to search for large vistas and sweeping significances. Read and relish Everyday Sacred and from this brief book, you will reap large bounties.

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by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat